My only thread

[Yi]

I will keep this only thread to ask my questions.
Is this photo a vintage? The photo is very clear with excellent quality. The material looks new with the Kodak marks on the back. But It must be taken or copy earlier than 1997. Because my uncle dead in 1997. I don't know who took it. I have a few similar photos with the same paper, also seems were taken on the same day. Anyone has seen this photo before? Thank you!

[drcy]

Not vintage. That Kodak printing on the back dates the paper to the 1970s-80s.

[Yi]

Thank you!

[Runscott]

Yi needs Yee

[Kawika]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Yi needs Yee

Good pith wins ballgames.

[JoeyF1981]

I really don't think yi is ready to sell any of these photos. I've talked to her many times and I think with the growing popularity of photo collecting I think she assumes her photos are worth a lot more than they really are. She really needs yee or just someone to take the time to really tell her what she has. She has thousands of photos and has no clue what any of them are worth

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by JoeyF1981

I really don't think yi is ready to sell any of these photos. I've talked to her many times and I think with the growing popularity of photo collecting I think she assumes her photos are worth a lot more than they really are. She really needs yee or just someone to take the time to really tell her what she has. She has thousands of photos and has no clue what any of them are worth

Joey, she's starting through a long process if the intent is to sell the collection off one at a time. I don't think most people realize just how long it takes to do that, especially if you're having to learn the material as you go. That's the reason so many inheritors of such a collection simply turn it over to an auction house and take what they can get (perhaps regretting their decision later, depending on the auction outcome). You seem to be very intent in trying to pry a few key pieces away from her, but if she wants to take her time and feel things out first, that's really to her credit. She clearly is not afraid of putting in the hours to work towards whatever plan she has in mind.

Yi, I'm not sure how you're planning on doing auctions from the website you're building, but I might suggest getting in touch with Bob Freedman if you're intent on doing the standalone auction thing (in other words, not on Ebay). It looks like you've got a good start on your website, but unless I'm mistaken, I don't think you will be able to run live auctions from there. Bob and his team have a proven auction platform (Simple Auction) and a long history of working with sports memorabilia auction houses in particular. It's a bit more expensive on the front end, but if that's the route you're going, it will be worth it in the long run. Perhaps your intent is to just sell using Ebay with a link to the auctions from your site however, and I've simply misunderstood?

[JoeyF1981]

Lance that is not the case at all...see my response on my thread

[thecatspajamas]

Joey, got it. It does seem my comment about your impatience was off-base. My apologies for that. I would suggest though that you might reserve any predictions about her reneging on deals struck until such has actually happened.

[JoeyF1981]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Joey, got it. It does seem my comment about your impatience was off-base. My apologies for that. I would suggest though that you might reserve any predictions about her reneging on deals struck until such has actually happened.

No problem lance just wanted to clear things up..I see what you're saying though.

[Runscott]

By 'Yi needs Yee', I didn't mean to sell her photos, but rather to understand what the Kodak watermarks, and the actual press stamps mean. She's asked questions about a lot of modern photos that are obviously not 1st-generation.

[JoeyF1981]

Originally Posted by Runscott

By 'Yi needs Yee', I didn't mean to sell her photos, but rather to understand what the Kodak watermarks, and the actual press stamps mean. She's asked questions about a lot of modern photos that are obviously not 1st-generation.

I agree

[drcy]

Yi needs someone like me to come in and simply put the photos in piles of originals, mades laters, etc. If you're not holdering and writing LOAs it won't take long. Just a matter of sorting and putting them in piles.

If Yi (if you are reading), I'd do it if you are near Seattle, but I wouldn't travel across the country to do it.

Once the photos are in groups, then everything after that should be easy.

Having written LOAs and cataloged an entire photography auction for an auction house, I can tell you that authenticating (specifically telling if something is original, wirephoto, made later, other) takes 20% percent of the time. It's the writing the LOA on the subject and writing/proofing the catalog description that takes 80%. Putting photos into groups might just be a matter of a few hours, depending on the size of the collection. I authenticated a collection of 25,000 once (included everything from Daguerreotypes to news photos to cabinet cards, sport and non sport), but that took more than a few hours.

Duly note, by authenticating in this post I'm not talking about facial recognition research of obscure people, doing family history for a family portrait from 1890 Tulsa, researching the statistical history of the game shown or matching the faces to the names of the 1872 US Congressional delegation. That stuff would take time and research and would be part of the above mentioned 80% of cataloging work. I'm talking about telling if a physical Babe Ruth news photo itself is original, reprint or whatever and putting MLB baseball photos into quick piles so Yi can deal with the photo-by-photo specifics when she wants later. If they are all MLB photos, I've been a baseball fan and baseball card collector since I was a kid and know what Gehrg, DiMaggio, Clemens, Robin Yount, Ryne, Tom Seaver, Christy Mathewson, et al look like at first glance. The one reason I knew right away the DiMaggio/Yankees photo was a reprint from modern times is I knew DiMaggio played long before the Kodak branding on back was used (1930-40s for DiMaggio versus 1970s-80 for that Kodak printing). If I was a Romanian in Bucharest and knew zero about baseball, I could have still told you the physical photo was probably from the 1970s-80s, but wouldn't have been able to tell you (without time and research) if it was original or a later reprint without knowledge of the subjects. Reprints are identified when the image subject and the physical photo don't match up date-wise, which means you have to have knowledge about both, not just one.

Yi can also send me a private message. I'm happy to answer questions about photos off board. I'm not buying or selling baseball photos, so no one else has to be suspicious of my motives.

[ethicsprof]

very kind and helpful offer from a key expert in the field.
well done.

all the best,
barry

[drcy]

"A key" I'm offended. Try the key. I consider myself the Dark Overlord of photography.

Actually, Yi messaged me. She lives too far away from me for me to see the photos in person, but I'll give her some distant advice. It appears she has so many photos, that she couldn't sell them all at once even if she wanted, and she can put aside the ones she's not sure about in a pile for later.

One interesting thing is it appears as if she may have a lot modern color originals of folks like Clemens and Tony Gwynn. If they're originals by her uncle, that's a lot different than the mass produced reprints you see all around. And modern photography, including color photography, is one of my areas of expertise. You can date and authenticate them just as you do antique photos-- at the least show that they are not recent reprints. The baseball photography hobby is mostly about old photos, largely ignoring modern stuff, but in other areas of photography (fashion and art for example), high end modern originals can fetch as much money as antique photos. Just because it's modern doesn't mean it's plentiful. An original 1978 color photo of Robin Yount may be as rare if not rarer than a 1920s of Babe Ruth.

For an example of modern rarity and value, in the area of fashion magazine photography, there fewer than 20 known original fashion photographs of the famous model Gia Carangi who modeled in the late 1970s-early 1980s (She died in 1986 at the age of 26). Tons and tons of cheap reprints on eBay and elsewhere, but very few quality Type Is. Magazines such as Vogue and Elle simply threw out their photos long ago and few originals remain. I once had an original 1979 Vogue magazine color photograph of Carangi that came from the collection of the Vogue photographer and it sold for $500 on eBay. That of course is more than most 1930s Babe Ruth photos.

I think modern (Post 1970) baseball photography is in its infancy compared to other areas of photography. Of course this is in major part because most baseball collectors can't tell if a modern photo of Cal Ripken or Derek Jeter is original or reprint, and don't know what separates a rare quality modern photo from a dime a dozen.

Duly note I'm not suggesting at all that an original 8x10 color photo of Cal Ripken or Tony Gwynn will sell for $500 or even close. The $500 was an exceptional instance outside of baseball, used as an example to illustrate the collectability of modern photography, and Gia Carangi is something of a Shoeless Joe Jackson/James Dean/Greta Garbo-like icon to many. Angelina Jolie played her in a movie. As with Shoeless Joe Jackson, any vintage original memorabilia of Canangi fetches a huge premium on the market.

But highest quality modern original non-sport photographs of other celebrities-- movie stars, Presidents, rock stars, famous artists-- can also fetch good money on the market. And modern original non-sport photos by world famous photographers also fetch good money. The baseball hobby just doesn't seem to be mature enough or knowledgeable enough about modern photography for that area to have yet caught on in baseball. Maybe someday.

I'm happy to informally advise collectors on the subject, and would write an article/short guide on collecting, valuation and authenticating modern sports photography if someone such as PSA or a big auction house asked. But, otherwise, I have other non-photography projects that are taking up my time, and wouldn't write an article in the near future on my own initiative.

[drcy]

I forgot. I have an 'Art and Artifacts' blog where i sometimes cover photography. If I have the time, perhaps I'll talk about the subject there.

Looking at Art and Artifacts Blog

But it would definitely be best for me and my schedule if someone such as Lelands, Huggins & Scott or PSA wrote and asked me to wrote an article or short guide. If I don't hear from anyone, then I'll take the hint that there's no interest If no one asks perhaps my feelings will be hurt, but I also won't have to do the work so that will even out fine.